342 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



wider view on religious toleration of Bayle in France 

 and later of Lessing in Germany compared with that 

 of Locke in England. How much more important a 

 correct theory of knowledge and the problem of ultimate 

 certitude had become in the interval and to foremost 

 thinkers on the Continent is shown by the tone of the 

 two Introductions referred to above. The plain histori- 

 cal method of the friend of Bayle and Sydenham and 

 the tutor of Shaftesbury in England, contrasts signifi- 

 cantly with the boldness of the solitary thinker of 

 Konigsberg (the " All-Destructive "), who sweeps away 

 all the existing philosophy of the schools, proclaims 

 a new era of thought, and anticipates that within twenty 

 years the new doctrine, with all its important and re- 

 assuring consequences, might be generally accepted. 1 



Kant, indeed, had at heart a vindication of the funda- 

 mental verities of religion : of the belief in the existence 

 of God, the Immortality of the soul, and the Freedom of 

 the Will. Was the human intellect able to reach in 

 these matters of belief something like that certainty 

 which belonged, according to his view, to the sciences of 



ingly to remove knowledge in order 

 to gain room for faith. The dog- 

 matism of metaphysics ... is 

 the real source of all unbelief 

 which contradicts morality (p. 679). 

 This is not a performance which 

 should be undervalued : once for 

 all by a Socratic method, i.e., 

 through a clear proof of the ignor- 

 ance of their opponents to put an 

 end to all attacks on morality and 

 religion " (p. 679). 



1 At the end of his first ' Critique ' 

 Kant gives what he terms the 

 ' History of Pure Reason, ' and 

 closes this short chapter by con- 



trasting his method with that of 

 Wolff on the one side and of Hume 

 on the other. "The critical way 

 is the only one open. If my 

 reader has been obliging and 

 patient enough to follow this in 

 my company he may then judge 

 whether . . . what many centuries 

 have not been able to attain might 

 not be achieved before the end of 

 the present one, namely, to give 

 to human reason complete satis- 

 faction regarding that which has 

 always, but hitherto unsuccessfully, 

 engaged her curiosity." 



